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Did the Templars Hide the Ark of the Covenant? Unraveling the Cove-Jones Cipher

On October 25th this year, the Vatican released a document that had remained in its secret archives for seven hundred years. It is the report of the official Church investigation into the activities of the Knights Templar in the early fourteenth century. In October 1306, these crusader knights were found guilty of idolatry, blasphemy, and heresy, and their order was dissolved. Some were burned at the stake, others imprisoned, and most were stripped of their assets. Astonishingly, this extraordinary document reveals how the Vatican enquiry found no evidence of wrongdoing. It was the Pope himself, Clement V, who directly intervened and declared the Templars heretics. The report appears to show that the pontiff was after their wealth, said to include priceless treasures once housed in the temple of Jerusalem and lost when the city was sacked in ancient times.

But despite the arrest and torture of leading Templars, and the wholesale seizure of their lands, nothing of this fabled hoard was ever found. Most historians doubt the existence of the Templar treasure. However, my research suggests that one of the ancient relics they are said to have possessed may have been hidden in central Britain.

Hallowed Relics

In the heart of England, close to Stratford-upon-Avon, famous as the birthplace of William Shakespeare, is the village of Temple Herdewyke, named after the Templars who once resided there. After the Third Crusade in the late twelfth century, these Templars returned from the Holy Land to build a chapel to house certain holy relics they claimed to have found. Many crusaders came home with items purportedly associated with early Judaism and Christianity, and with characters and events in the Bible, but the Temple Herdewyke knights are said to have discovered the most famous biblical artifact of all: the Ark of the Covenant. At least, according to local legend!

They certainly claimed to have found what appear to have been considered hallowed relics at the time. Contemporary records of land and property holdings reveal that in 1192 the chapel housed certain objets sacrés – “sacred objects” – which the Templars had acquired in the Holy Land, including a large golden chest. This is exactly what the Ark of the Covenant was said to be.

According to the Old Testament, it was a large golden box, made to contain the tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, lost when the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem in 587 BC.

Secret Messages

Although the Templars were rounded up in 1306, some evaded capture. Six hundred years later, a British historian suggested that they managed to survive in secret at Temple Herdewyke until 1350, when they were wiped out by the Black Death.

Jacob Cove-Jones, who lived in the area, not only believed they possessed the lost Ark, he also claimed to have discovered its secret hiding place. Having fallen out with fellow scholars for ridiculing his work, Cove-Jones refused to reveal his findings.

Jacob Cove-Jones (Public Domain)

He intended to carry out an excavation of his own, but sadly it never transpired. In 1906 he contracted tuberculosis and decided to take his secret to the grave. Well, almost! Knowing he had only a short time to live, the eccentric historian left behind a bizarre epitaph. He designed a stained-glass window that he commissioned to be made and installed in a new church that was being built close to his home in the village of Langley. Astonishingly, on his deathbed he announced that the window contained a series of clues to lead to where he was sure the Ark was hidden.

Most dismissed him as a crank, while others who attempted to crack the code gave up without success. I personally remain to be convinced that this Victorian scholar really did know where the Ark was hidden or, for that matter, whether the Templars ever discovered the Ark at all. Nevertheless, Jacob Cove-Jones certainly seems to have believed it, and went to a great deal of trouble to leave his cryptic message. It was, I decided, likely that the window did hold clues to lead to something; if that was actually the lost Ark remains to be seen. It was certainly worth investigating this century-old Edwardian mystery.

Clues in the Epiphany Window

Completed in 1906, the year Cove Jones’s died, Langley chapel is one of the smallest churches in England, and the window in question is set into a side wall. Called the Epiphany Window, it depicts the three Wise Men visiting the baby Jesus on Epiphany, the twelfth night of Christmas between January 5 and 6. Matthew’s Gospel relates how three mystics from the East followed a miraculous star that led them to Bethlehem where Christ was born. According to Christian tradition, the Wise Men ultimately found Jesus when a rooster uncharacteristically crowed at midnight on top of the building where the child slept. The window scene shows the Wise Men holding their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, praising the baby held in his mother’s arms, while above them is the crowing rooster and the wondrous star.

Strangely, the stained-glass window did not depict the Ark. Why the Nativity, I wondered? The Wise Men were said to have found the baby Jesus by following a star. Might a star be Jacob Cove-Jones’s vital clue? Was the seeker being told to follow a star?

The Ark of the Covenant is indeed associated with stars: two of them, to be precise. The Bible describes the Ark as having figurines of two angels on its lid. They were said to depict the archangels Michael and Gabriel that, according to Hebrew tradition, were represented in the sky by the stars Benetnash and Mizar, the tail stars of what we now called the Big Dipper.

The stained-glass window did in fact appear to show two stars, one overlaid on the other, and right next to this design were the letters B and M, the very initials of these stars. If these celestial bodies were to somehow indicate the location of the hidden Ark, I needed to know both when and from where to observe them.

Does the Pheonix Point the Way?

The specific day, I decided, was revealed by the event portrayed in the window: Epiphany, on the twelfth night of Christmas. And the precise time was revealed by the rooster next to the star. It is said to have crowed at midnight. The location, it seemed, was indicated by two pertinent images in the scene. Between the letters B and M was depicted the fire bird, the phoenix, rising from the flames, and on top of a hill overlooking Temple Herdewyke there is a peculiar round tower called the Phoenix Beacon.

In fact, the central image in the stained-glass window bears a striking resemblance to the tower, with its distinctive conical roof and castellated walls. It is represented as a container held by one of the figures, and upon it was another depiction of the phoenix, and the Latin words, “come and adore.” I was certain that Cove-Jones intended his seeker to observe the stars at 12 p.m. on Epiphany night, from the position of the tower. At that exact time, the two stars are low in the sky and, when viewed from the Phoenix Beacon, are pointing almost directly downwards to the foot of a hill on the horizon, specifically to a little village called Chapel Green.

Investigation

Chapel Green is named after a medieval chapel that once stood there, but all that remains today is a Victorian drinking fountain standing beside the road. Dating from Cove-Jones’s time, it is a red-brick, rectangular structure, inlaid with an arched niche. It closely resembles a red-brick arch depicted in the window scene, right below the star design.

Convinced that that this was exactly where the clues in the Epiphany Window were intended to lead, I organized a geophysics survey of the area, but although we discovered evidence of the original chapel, nothing made of gold or resembling the Ark appeared to be there. Tragically, in 1949 the lane was widened and the ruins of the centuries-old chapel were destroyed. Perhaps the workmen involved had dug up whatever was there to be found. If it was the lost Ark, they kept it quiet.

At present, I am trying to discover who the workmen were, so I can trace their living relatives. Maybe – just maybe – someone in central England still knows the whereabouts of the Ark of the Covenant. The vessel famously described by Indiana Jones as “a radio for talking to God.”

Graham Phillips

Graham Phillips is a British non-fiction author who has investigated historical mysteries for over three decades, and has appeared in many documentaries broadcast worldwide. His fifteen published books include investigations into the truth behind the legendary figures of King Arthur... Read More

Comments

Most of the information on the Templars is false. The truth is suppressed by the Vatican and the Knight Templar Freemasons of today with disinformation.

After arrest of some of the Templars in 1306 escaped to Scotland where they created the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. They came back to France to restore their Knights Templar of the royal bloodline of the Merovingians and orchestrated the French Revolution.

Then they refounded the Knights Templars as the Illuminati and established a headquarters in Washington DC under the direction of Deist and Mason George Washington. Deists deny the inspiration of scripture and accept theistic evolution and the occult. They worship Satan as Baphomet a transgender sex Idol. Washington was not a Christian, he was a Baal worshiper and placed the symbol of Baal, the Washington Monument representing 666 in Washington DC, and placed artwork of all the Pagan gods on the ceiling of the Capitol dome.

The Templars included King Arthur and his knights who were descendants of the Merovingian lineage of the Nephilim. Arthur was a black giant about 12 feet tall who worshipped Isis falsely claimed to be Mother Mary. This information has been suppressed, falsely claiming Arthur was only a myth.

These Templars were only in the Crusades for a short time. The Crusades went on for many years without them. They were living under the Temple Mount long enough to locate the gold treasures hidden in 70 AD when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. Then they returned to Europe rich men to build castles and loan the Kings of Europe money, controlling the royalty of the old Roman Empire mainly France and England. Their plan was to recreate Babel, which was a recreation of the Pre-Flood world government of Cain.

Their descendants created the banks which control the world under the Rothschild dynasty, which in turn control the Rockefellers and Morgans in America. The gold is no longer in Israel because these knights found it using the ancient records listed in the copper scroll.

The Ark of the Covenant was not removed by Babylonians when they sacked Jerusalem in 587 BC it was still in the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD but was removed by God to Heaven when Jesus was crucified. The Ark found by the Templars was a fake to replace the genuine Ark which was hidden under the Temple and removed by the Templars to their Grail Treasure. This treasure will be used to attempt to convince people, that the Antichrist is the promised Jewish Messiah. It will contain the Merovingian blood of Jacques de Molay, the same blood that is on the Shroud of Turin which was used to torture de Molay after a trial convicted him as a Knights Templar founder arrested in the 1300s AD. They were a threat to European Kings not of Merovingian descent. They will falsely claim both the Grail and blood on the Shroud are from the blood of Jesus, AB Negative the most rare blood type of the Merovingians who are Jews who intermarried with Gentiles of Nephilim royal descent.

*** The Ark of the covenant was discovered in 1985 by Proffesor ron wyatt / American archeaoligist.**location- cave underneath Golgotha . " the place of the skull" under the crucifixion site of Jesus of Nazareth . ( the levites placed the Ark and alter candle stand,table of showbread, as well as other relics in this cave in 70A.D. )*** go to YouTube and type in __- "Ron Wyatt Ark of covenant discovery" to learn the Proffesors ordeal as well as listen to the documentary . **note-.-it surprises me greatly that authorities such as the National geographic society havent pounced on this story!!! I hope Ancient Origins have the scientific audacity to pursue this grand opportunity and be rewarded with a fact finding mission ,as the question of "where the Ark is hiding " has been answered once and for all!!! Thank you, proffeser Michael Edwards_-research scientist ( 337) -785 - 0171 Crowley ,Louisiana .70526

Of course you have no proof of any of this, just ramblings. I note you state, "it (the Ark)was still in the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD but was removed by God to Heaven when Jesus was crucified. The crucifixion occurred about 33 AD, yet it was here in 70 AD?

If your book is as poorly written as your comment, I think I'll pass on reading it.

With much to gain by simply giving you the website and the youtube documentary , i would say to any real intellectual individual , the Ark being " Found " constitutes a bit of realizm you Horribly Fail to realize ???

"Unfortunate for some individuals in Life to always be pesimistic doubters and habitual critical misnomer types,who instead of Rejoicing over a Great Archeaological Ramification of Discovery , Would rather argue the exsistance of such when the obvious given Pre_ located Relic has been found to Have already Brought to light and has an access available to them in the Form of easily Formidable Internet Website Announciations and well documented research !!! The mere Fact that this question is "A No Brainer " for All to see and Appreciate !!!

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